It's hard to think or talk about No. 2 Florida State without remembering the dominance of its 2013 team. After all, much of the offensive line is back, Mario Edwards and several key athletes are back on defense, Rashad Greene and Nick O'Leary are running routes, and the reigning Heisman-winner Jameis Winston is still throwing dimes.
If Notre Dame wants to upset Florida State, it’s got to do these 3 things
The Seminoles are favored by more than a touchdown at home against the Irish (8 p.m. ET Saturday, ABC). Can the flawed visitors take advantage of the defending champs’ own shortcomings?
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But when they defend their home field against the No. 5 Fighting Irish of Notre Dame on Saturday night, they’ll be facing a team that’s a near-mirror image, according to the numbers. The Seminoles are ranked 21st by S&P, with the 16th-ranked offense and 26th-ranked defense. The Irish are No. 22, with the 19th-best offense and 22nd-best D.
Both teams live and die by the play of their passers, Winston and Everett Golson. Both use lots of formations and throw the ball to big tight ends who create matchup issues. And both teams struggle to run the football. Defensively, both teams have athletic units that love to get pressure with the blitz, but have inexperienced young safeties on the back end.
Since the matchup advantages that each team tends to leverage are so similar, this game might come down to which better adjusts its strategy. Or you can just call it for the home team, but that wouldn’t be very much fun.
Here are three questions that could shape the outcome.
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1. Notre Dame must exploit defensive weak spots
Much like Auburn’s potent run game, the Noles’ defense isn’t what it was a year ago. Marginal decline at multiple positions has knocked FSU’s defense off 2013’s dominant pace, while a rash of injuries has left the Seminoles downright vulnerable through the heart of their defense.
One spot is the nickel position that was occupied in 2013 by the devastatingly quick Lamarcus Joyner. The 'Noles slide safety Jalen Ramsey into that spot, which prevents a serious decline, but they've fared less well in replacing Ramsey on the back end of the defense. The tandem of Tyler Hunter and Nate Andrews is athletic, but also prone to assignment errors and bad leverage, as is the wont of inexperienced safeties. The result is a marginal decline at three positions that were major strengths for FSU last year.
And while FSU had a cast of quality players to use in replacing stud nose tackle Timmy Jernigan, injuries have left them with players like the less experienced (and likewise injured) Derrick Mitchell at that spot.
Edge rusher Christian Jones left, and FSU moved the massively talented Edwards to a similar role. From this spot, big No. 15 is not at his natural position, which would be strongside end, where he could erase an opposing running game with his absurd strength and athleticism. That's still an upgrade, but meant moving Edwards where he's needed rather than where he might be best.
Ultimately, the biggest problem for FSU is in stopping the inside run, which can be compounded on snaps when the safeties don’t nail their run support roles. Their defense is designed much like Alabama’s or Oklahoma’s, in that the tackles have to clog the middle while the linebackers read, shuffle, and fill gaps behind.
Unlike Alabama's linebackers, who are wide and hard to get traction against, the Noles' backers are more like what the Sooners have. Terrance Smith and Reggie Northrup are lighter athletes who thrive when flowing to the ball unhindered by reaching linemen or when playing coverage. With the injuries and attrition up front, they are not always unencumbered when playing the run:
Notice how quickly the OL releases off the double team on the playside tackle and reaches the ‘Nole linebacker, who’s reading and reacting to the flow. Here the safeties arrive quickly and in great leverage to prevent a massive gain, but what happens if that’s Notre Dame’s Tarean Folston darting through a crease like that?
Of course, Notre Dame hasn't exactly been running the ball with authority. It's needed time to replace tackle Zack Martin, who is now pummeling opponents with the Dallas Cowboys. Notre Dame was able to run over North Carolina, but for the Seminoles' faults, they are still much, much better on defense than the Tar Heels.
The Irish will need to get their zone and power game going. If they can get Folston and Greg Bryant going on power, in particular, that will greatly aid Golson in attacking the FSU safeties down the field.
Running wide to the edge is no use against the ‘Noles, as they are too fast in the defensive backfield:
2. The Irish pass rush must pressure Winston
What got FSU into trouble against Auburn was the Tiger pass rush, which brought Winston down four times. While Winston's numbers against blitzes are excellent, pass protection has continued to be a problem for the 'Noles in 2014. Clemson was all over backup Sean Maguire, with three sacks in the second quarter alone.
NC State was also able to get pressure on the Seminoles, with three sacks, and Wake Forest added another three.
Left tackle Cameron Erving has not played up to the standard that a team looking to win a championship with its passing game needs from its premier pass protector. One solution for the 'Noles could be to chip the more dangerous edge rushers with tight end O'Leary, but this removes one of the best weapons from the Seminole passing game and thus defeats the purpose.
As it happens, the real danger of the Irish pass rush isn't from a dominant edge rusher, but from Brian VanGorder's zone blitz package. It can create pressure against any weak spot in a protection, thanks to pass-rush weapons like Jaylon Smith and Kolin Hill. This becomes extra dangerous when paired with Notre Dame's Tampa 2 packages:
Smith is an athletic eraser in underneath coverage, unlike anything Florida State has seen in the Winston era. It’s not at all uncommon for QBs to assume they can outrun the Irish linebackers on a scramble, only to find Smith dragging them down in an instant.
Like the ‘Noles, the Irish have an athletic-but-inexperienced secondary. They would be well-served by mixing in a good deal of Tampa 2 coverage, to try and survive Winston’s attempts to beat deep coverage, with well-aimed blitzes that speed up his internal clock.
If they can create a consistent pass rush against FSU, as many other teams have done, it bodes well for their ability to hide their secondary from Jimbo Fisher’s deadly aerial game.
3. Golson must have a Winston-quality Saturday
Quarterbacks don’t play against each other, but we’d all be fools to say that they aren’t measuring themselves against each other or that we aren’t gauging team performances by QB play.
Both teams want to run the ball, but both sacrifice practice time to ensure that the passing game is clicking. Both teams create scores with vertical passing.
While Winston is staring down a vulnerable defense that has great disguise and pressure, Golson is facing one that is especially hard on spread offenses.
The ‘Noles spend a lot of time playing nickel, and their 2-4-5 sets get a lot of length and speed on the field. Weakside linebacker Smith is great in coverage, thanks to his 6’4 frame. The safeties and nickel are all blazing fast, if sometimes out of position. And the team still has a playbook that managed to quiet down Auburn’s attack in the title game.
FSU’s favorite measure for handling spread offenses is with the nickel blitz coming off the field side:
FSU favors boundary corner or nickel pressures, because of how they overload shotgun read plays. They allow some of FSU’s fastest athletes to attack the backfield at angles, and the Seminoles have quick safeties whom they trust to pick up the receivers. Other than these blitzes, FSU’s best means for creating pressure is for Edwards to whip somebody and get after it.
The trick for Notre Dame is to punish these pressures with TE Ben Koyack and with well-timed WR tunnel screens. A tunnel screen thrown into the nickel blitz can be pretty rough to defend, since the linebacker is often too far inside and the offense has two blockers for the safety and the corner.
In fact, when Notre Dame runs tunnel screens, it’ll have either Koyack or the line releasing upfield to block the FSU DBs.
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If the Irish can run the ball reasonably well, they have some great tools for combating FSU’s favorite anti-spread tactics. But they’ll still have to contend with crowd noise and a great deal of defensive speed. Their game in the mud against Stanford’s defense will undoubtedly serve as solid prep.
Notre Dame was not built in a lab to beat the Seminoles, but they do have a chance to handle some of what FSU does on defense, some weapons to attack their young safeties deep rather than allowing the blazing fast FSU D to play downhill, and some tools for stopping Winston.
But at the end of the day, the most dominant feature in this game is still the Florida State passing game. If Notre Dame responds to Winston throwing to Greene like it did against Alabama’s running game two years ago, then FSU will maintain its drive towards the Playoff.
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